Stories in the works - 8/18/2014

Hello,

As of today I have three stories that are in process, one of which is actively being written. I will talk about them chronologically from when I first started writing them.

The first story was started in February 2014. The title will more than likely be "Summer Secrets" and will be posted to FictionMania once it is completed. The story was inspired by a forum post by Gandar at FictionMania on 2/8/2014.

"I keep waiting for someone to write a 60's or 70's style story where a woman who owns a salon has a hippie-type son in that age group (13-18) who won't cut his long hair for a summer job and ends up keeping his long hair, but forced to work as a shampoo girl working for his mom in a skirted uniform and finds he loves it."

I realized I'd been that age in the 70s and my mom had worked at a salon and I even had a job sweeping floors for about a week. I decided that I would write a story that combined the wishes of the poster along with people and events I remembered from my time growing up in the 70s

I wrote the first draft in five weeks and it was around 56,000 words at the time. By time I finished the first draft I had pages of notes for myself on things I wanted to add or change. I was finding it difficult to track all of the sub plots through the story and I decided to let the story sit while I wrote another story that really, really wanted to be written.

I started the second of the three unfinished stories on 4/15/2014. It is a magical story and was inspired by a story by another author. When the story is finally posted I will give full credit to the author, but right now I am hesitant to mention much about this story. I'm not sure why. The story is 54,000 words long, took eight weeks to write and is pretty much complete. I am currently contemplating making it an illustrated story and posting it on Femur's TG Comics website. We will see.

On 7/2/2014 I started a story called "Coffee and Cigarettes: A Love Story". I know that this will be the title since it was the inspiration for the story itself. I wrote about 10,000 words in two weeks, which I am guessing is around half of what it will be in the end, when I got inspired to write the second draft of "Summer Secrets".

The second draft of "Summer Secrets" took three weeks and added another 10k words. I am going to let it sit again. I think letting the story cool off for a bit really helped me write the second draft with "new" eyes. Once I am done writing the third draft I may try and solicit a couple pre-readers to give me feedback on the story before I post the final version. I do not know when I'll start the third draft.

I have resumed writing "Coffee and Cigarettes: A Love Story". I'm hoping that I'll be able to finish it within a couple weeks.